My friend and former tutor John Burrow, who has died aged 85, brought new grace and sensitivity to the understanding of medieval English literature, and was one of the most influential scholars of his generation. The earliest of his many classic studies, published in 1965, provided an interpretation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that remains standard today. His other books illuminated the great poets of the period, in particular Chaucer, Gower, Langland, the Gawain poet and Hoccleve.

He wrote with clarity and wit. Always judicious and perceptive, he was attentive to small detail, for example opening our eyes to the significance of winking in medieval texts. He was an accomplished editor, most recently of an electronic edition of Piers Plowman, for which he collaborated with others since he never got around to mastering the internet.

John was born and brought up in Loughton, Essex, the son of William Burrow, an accountant, and his wife, Ada (nee Hodgson), a teacher. He attended Buckhurst Hill county high school, Chigwell, and went to Christ Church, Oxford, to study English.

He began his academic career in 1955 as an assistant lecturer at King’s College London, returning to Oxford in 1957 as a lecturer in English at Christ Church and Brasenose College. In 1961 he became a fellow of Jesus College, and collaborated with his friends John Carey and Christopher Ricks to breathe fresh life into the stuffy English syllabus.

In 1976 he took up the Winterstoke chair at Bristol University, where he served as head of department and subsequently dean of the faculty, always acting with a humanity and generosity that did not necessarily chime with the university management.

In 1986 John was elected a fellow of the British Academy, and from 1983 to 2006 he served as honorary director of the Early English Text Society. Though he steadfastly refused to use email, he always responded with thoughtfulness and care to the many requests for assistance from young scholars.

He loved walking in the countryside around Clifton, Bristol, where he lived, but the polio he had as a boy caught up with him in later life, and he became increasingly disabled. He continued writing and publishing prolifically, leaving his last work, almost completed, on his desk at his death.

His wife, the children’s fantasy writer Diana Wynne Jones, died in 2011. He is survived by their sons, Richard, Michael and Colin, and by five grandchildren.